Epilepsy

Epilepsy (Blom, Flink): Within the epilepsy surgery program several research projects have been launched. An animal model, implanting of ferrous chloride into cortex to create an epileptic focus, have been used to study different aspects of the epileptogenesis. The experimental studies have led to further investigations in human with laser doppler recordings together with subdural recordings to correlate changes in the regional cerebral blood flow to seizure activity in the EEG. Intracerebral micro dialysis has also been performed in human to analyse the changes of extracellular concentrations of different amino acids during seizure activity. Another project have been to characterize the epileptogenic zone in focal epilepsy in human with the use of PET technique. Different ligands have been used. 18-fluoro-deoxy-glucos will label areas of hypometabolism often correlating to the epileptogenic zone. Deprenyl will bind to the enzyme MAO-B which is mainly located in the glial cells in the CNS and thus show focal areas of gliosis. Ketamine as a ligand have been employed to label the NMDA receptor, which may indicate an increased excitatory activity in the brain.
Studies to locate interictal and ictal activity in the brain from surface EEG recordings have been performed using different source localization methods. A dipole method, calculating the electric source generator in a realistic 3-dimensional three shell head model with individual conductivity, where the dipole location can be superimposed on the MRI reconstruction of the head and brain, have been described and validated in patients undergoing preoperative evaluation for epilepsy surgery.

©2013 Uppsala University | Updated: 2011-08-09
Department of Neuroscince, Clinical Neurophysiology,
Akademiska University Hospital, S-751 85 UPPSALA
Visit adress: Entrance 85, 3rd floor
Tel. +46 (0)18 611 34 53 | Fax. +46 (0)18 55 61 06
Infomaster: Send a mail
Webmaster: Send a mail